Read & Return & Read & Return

This kiosk’s strategy to sell the book on the promise of buying in back at a later date involves a fair amount of bait and switch – consumers mentally calculating only 50% of the cost of the book, but only a small percentage of these actually returning the book and claiming the refund.

Far more interesting is Amazon contacting consumers who have bought books and a few years down the line letting them know the price that other consumers are now paying online – essentially creating a market where there was none. The broad trend to watch here is the shift from the default ‘it’s mine’ assumption about ownership to ‘it’s mine for now’, and everything that might be associated with that shift.